this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2025
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Make Votes Matter
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Overview:
Make Votes Matter is a political pressure group based in the United Kingdom which campaigns for replacing the archaic first-past-the-post voting system with one of proportional representation for elections to the British House of Commons. The group was founded in 2015.
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I saw this video on some other voting methods some time ago, might be interesting to some: https://youtu.be/yhO6jfHPFQU
tl;dw all voting systems have some flaw(s), but FPTP is the flawiest of them all and should be replaced asap
Fuck it. No compromise direct democracy. We're at a point where it's possible now.
While I appreciate the video educating me on the approval system. I disagree with its final conclusion as proportional representation is more tried and tested. As it counts 95% of the vote, allows smaller parties/independents to compete and improves the government’s performance on economy, inequality, social justice and climate.
The countries that rank the highest in international rankings such as Finland, Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, Ireland and Iceland all use a form of proportional representation.
The single transferable vote blows instant runoff right out of the water as it’s ranked and proportional avoiding the pitfall strengthening the 2 big parties. It works great in Ireland, as they have friendly politics and regularly elect independents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote
Replace commons with STV, and Lords with PR.
Devolve English powers away from Commons and Lords too.
Ideal set up would be:
3 regional assemblies, cut England in a Y shape to give approximately similar population regions, voted through PR. All regional level, domestic decisions are delegated. Replaces the Lords.
Rename the Commons to British Senate (or whatever) and they control national decisions and general UK policy.
Monarchy is given the remainder of the existing one generation to continue to receive the rents, but after Charles will be disbanded as a government institution.
But who else will the BBC and droves of lost tourists fawn over
I'm not suggesting execution. Just that they are outside of government.
The BBC can carry on fawning over them, just like all the other irrelevant celebrities with no real world use.
What do you mean "...Lords with PR"? PR is a result of a voting system, not a voting system itself. Do you mean Party Lists, so the people vote for parties instead of individuals and the parties decide who sits in the Lords?
If so, it doesn't sound like much of a change to me.
There is a whole lot more to my post that that half a sentence.
But basically saying that we should have two different methods of representation in the two houses, both by coverage and by voting method to prevent certain areas/parties overwhelming, and being overwhelmed by others.
Why should London get to dictate how the North is governed simply by there being more people, but for like, why should the North get to dictate how money is spent in London?
There should be county councils for deciding local matters, "super councils" to decide regional matters and a national government to decide national and overseas policies.
On the other hand, if the only issue is that I picked PR for one and STV for another, and you would prefer a different voting mechanism then I'm completely fine with that too. However having PR, AV or whatever would be much better, IMHO, than the current Lords which never replaces it's representation, and I disagree that it would be exactly the same as the current state.
You keep saying PR as if it's one thing. There's a whole family of systems that give proportional representation to greater or lesser degrees. STV is one, but seeing as you proposed that for the commons you seem to be ruling it out for the lord's.
So I was asking which system you'd prefer? I personally dislike anything where the parties get told "you have 100 seats, fill them with whoever you like" commonly known as party lists. It removes the ability for voters to vote a particular person out.
I already said that I honestly don't care.
In my opinion, PR is either open or closed list systems. STV falls under alternative voting methods (from my point of view), because it does not proportionally represent. Either way it really doesn't matter because as my first reply said, that's not the bit I give the biggest shit about.
Replacement of FPTP is a start, while replacement of our terrible two house system where we have no say over the second house would be better, and replacement of both would be best.
STV for both is fine, I was just suggesting a candidate based system for one house and a party based system for the second to try and counter too much of the "one policy candidates" but not eliminate the ability for people to show what they really care about.
Not that we will get either, so I'm not sure why you are quite so aggressive about it.
Party-lists is the most proportional, followed by mixed-member proportional and then single transferable vote.
You’re the first person I have met who preferred party-lists, I suppose the people in my area really like the local representation.
Preferred is a very strong word as a summary of my position.
I said that I preferred two different voting methods for the two different levels of chambers, and as such suggested PR for one of them.
I would prefer removal of the Lords and devolution of English powers to regional authorities leaving the renamed Commons to deal with national/international positions and delegating basically everything that would get devolved to Wales/Scotland/Northern Ireland to the three Regional Authorities.
You can have local representation with the single-transferable vote and mixed-member proportional systems.
AV is not an improvement as it’s harder for smaller parties/independents to win, the politics remains adversarial, there is a lack of minority and women representation, strategy voting is involved. Also notice how Australia is behind the countries of Norway, Denmark and Switzerland in the international rankings.
https://www.fairvote.ca/ranked-ballot/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Press_Freedom_Index
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Country_Index
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Peace_Index
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_Inequality_Index
Are you seriously trying to say that AV is no better than FPTP?
https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/voting-systems/types-of-voting-system/alternative-vote/
Alternative voting is a form of ranked voting. To claim that it's harder for independents to get elected is either completely false or the reform website does a bad job of explaining it. It would make it easier for independents to get elected because people can put their names down without throwing away their vote.
The lib Dems campaigned and we had a referendum. Don't make shit up.
The population chose fear mongering over a better voting system.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_Kingdom_Alternative_Vote_referendum